Punk-bands, Eastern German magazines and journalists caught in surveillance grid

Extreme cases of surveillance carried out against punk-bands, members
of the "Eastern German magazine" 'telegraph' and other press
representatives is raising the degree of uneasiness felt throughout the
country.

More and more details emerge in relation to the investigations
into the authorities' conduct concerning the "militante gruppe" (mg)
[militant group] and the suspects associated with it. It transpired
that investigators to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office not only
intercepted letters originating from within the leftist spectrum
addressed to Berlin-based daily news papers, but also engaged in the
eavesdropping, protocolling and non-anonymous filing of phone
conversations between journalists of the NDR [North German
Broadcasting], taz [left-wing daily paper] and Spiegel Online, to name
a few. The former GDR-opposition magazine further reports that the
investigations against the 'mg' even resorted to the inclusion of
materials derived from personal files on victims of the Eastern German
state security police 'Stasi' for the purpose of drawing up-to-date
personal profiles, formerly maintained on GDR system-critics.

The materials reportedly date back to 1988, at a time when parts of
the GDR-opposition also rallied against the West-Berlin summit of the
International Monetary Fund as well as the World Bank Group in East
Germany. According to the telegraph, prior to the reunification known by the name "Umweltblätter"
[environmental leaflets], the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation
(BKA) already attempted to produce evidence for interaction with
"terrorist circles" with the aid of their GDR state security police
"colleagues" back then. In the example at hand the Ministry for State
Security is said to have had a stab at environmental organisation
Greenpeace in its records amongst others.

The consultation of the state security (Stasi) files in the course
of investigations into the membership in a terrorist organisation
against four authors working for the telegraph magazine according to
§129a StGB
[Criminal Code] was triggered by nine key-words such as "implode" or
"draconian", which are said to have also been employed in letters
claiming responsibility for assaults issued by the 'mg'. Amongst the
contributing writers was the Berlin-based sociologist Andrej H., an
issued warrant of arrest against whom has since been quashed by the
Federal Supreme Court (BGH) end of October. Already back then the
questionable reasons for the arrest have drawn sharp criticism from
scientists from around the world. This also concerned the utilisation
of technical terms and similarities which were allegedly established
between these terms and the contents of letters claiming responsibility
by way of performing search requests with Google.

According to the statement issued by the editorial department,
all-encompassing observations in relation to the sociologist had taken
place in the shape of house searches, GPS-enabled vehicle bugging, the
hourly sending of "silent" mobile text messages, video surveillance,
surveillance of internet habits and email-usage as well as background
checks on friends and other persons. "We can only take a guess at how
far our journalistic work is affected by these developments", explained
telegraph-editor Andreas Schreier commenting the case. "Observational
photographs of the telegraph's office are said to have appeared within
the file and the main suspect Andrej H.'s emails have resided on the
editors' email server." Reviewing the latest occurrences of
surveillance incidents affecting journalists and lawyers, one would
have to beg the question: "Are we headed towards a new German secret
police?"

Meanwhile, the band "Mono für Alle!" (MfA) [Mono for All!] also
feels to have fallen victim to wrongful surveillance measures. The punk
formation from Gießen [Giessen], Germany, had already attracted the
attention of Bavaria's State Security in the past for their critical
lyrics "Hallo Verfassungsschutz" [Hello Office for the Protection of
the Constitution], deletion of which of from the band's web page
has been demanded by the agency. Now MfA announced that the public
prosecutor's offices of Stuttgart and Gießen would be carrying out
investigations in relation to the song "Amoklauf" [killing spree].
Accordingly, the State Security is said to have surveilled the band
members' personal environment, scrutinised their school records and
contacted concert promoters. Furthermore, an investigator is said to
have registered with MfA's fan-club with an email-account specifically
set up for this purpose. All this has happened without the band's
awareness whose attention has only recently been drawn to these
ongoings in the course of questionings carried out in their personal
environment.

The inspection of files which has been carried out in the meantime
suggests that suspicious facts regarding the band were first identified
December 2006, when the Waiblingen police headquarters came across the
song "Amoklauf", reportedly having described it in an email to the
Stuttgart public prosecutor's office as "very aggressive and
agitative". With reference to an interview conducted by a computer
gaming magazine with the band, mention was made that the song shall not
be broadcasted before 10 pm. However, the passage making mention of the
fact that MfA attributed a therapeutic effect to the song with
deterring potential regarding killing sprees has not been pointed out.
Likewise, no mention has been made that the media industry's
self-regulatory body has firmly attested the song to enjoy the
constitutionally guaranteed freedom of artistic expression enshrined in
Article 5 GG [German Constitution]. It follows from the file that the
public prosecutor's office sensed a possible "Instruction for Crimes"
according to §130a Criminal Code (StGB) and concluded that the song
should be viewed in connection with killing sprees at schools.

The case was then handed over to the Gießen public prosecutor's
office, which instructed the State Security to carry out further
investigations. The State Security made out a "high degree of
conspiratory conduct" since there "were no pointers whatsoever as to
the band members' identities". The subsequent investigations then
focused on scouring the internet, on-line ordering of audio content as
well as the analysis of photographs and interviews. The investigators
are also said to have targeted concert venues where the band's concerts
have been scheduled. It was only after eight months into the
investigations that the State Security got the idea to carry out a
Whois-search against the band's web domain, informs the file. The
personal data retrieved this way were subsequently used to sniff around
in their circles of families and friends, relates MfA. Mono für Alle!
has now instructed a lawyer.

The reports on unusual governmental observations drew criticism
amongst the affected groups and opposition parties. For example,
NDR-director Jobst Plog warned of a "massive assault on the
constitutionally protected broadcasting freedom and the freedom of
press". Journalists' working conditions would be severely interfered
with. Journalist associations assessed the protection of informants to
have suffered from a major blow. Parliamentary party leader for the
Green Party Renate Künast particularly branded the resorting of the
Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA) to files of the former
Eastern German state security police (Stasi) as "scandalous". At least
the conduct of the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office in eavesdropping
on terror suspects and representatives of the press has already been
the subject of parliamentary scrutiny. Member of the Bundestag for the
Green Party Hans-Christian Ströbele demands a statement from the
Federal Government as to the intended future handling of the
wire-tapping records. In his view, it is apparent that the Federal
Public Prosecutor's Office acted in ignorance of all save-guards for
the protection of the broadcasting freedom and the freedom of press
when ordering the surveillance; and the same would be true for the
subsequent carrying out of the surveillance by the Federal Office of
Criminal Investigation (BKA) and the State Office of Criminal
Investigation (LKA), Kiel. (Stefan Krempl) / (Translation of the original German article by Matthias Toth) /
(jk/c't)